


Make the Minutes Stop

by smashedglassglitteringlikestars



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale is a Mess (Good Omens), Blood, Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley and Aziraphale have a panic attack, Crowley is a Mess (Good Omens), Crying, Destruction of Crowley's flat, Gen, He/Him Pronouns For Aziraphale (Good Omens), He/Him Pronouns For Crowley (Good Omens), Hurt/Comfort, Ineffable Husbands Being Ineffable Idiots, Last Night on Earth, M/M, Mild Blood, Multi, Other, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2020-04-23
Packaged: 2021-02-26 18:34:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23801422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smashedglassglitteringlikestars/pseuds/smashedglassglitteringlikestars
Summary: After the Not-Pocalypse, Crowley and Aziraphale can't decipher the prophecy that could save their existences from Heaven and Hell. So they spend their maybe-last-night-on-Earth doing whatever they want, and await the morning with dried tears on their cheeks. Nothing will ever be enough.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13





	Make the Minutes Stop

**Author's Note:**

> Better have some tissues handy.

They hold hands on the bus.

They hold hands on the bus, and it isn’t enough. It won’t ever be enough. There is a burning in Crowley’s chest right where his heart beats, and he guesses that’s actually where it’s coming from -  _ heartburn _ , humans call it, don’t they? That’s a good word for what he’s feeling right now, anyhow. 

Aziraphale’s hand is warm in his, and he cannot stop focusing exclusively on how their palms are melded together, his own a bit sweaty, and the way their fingers interlace like the divots between their phalanges were made for each other. He clutches it tighter without realizing, and if Aziraphale notices, he doesn’t seem to care. 

Because Aziraphale is numb; he’s numb for the first time in his life. He’s numb, because he hasn’t a clue what  _ choose your faces wisely _ means, and neither does Crowley, and they’re headed to Crowley’s flat for possibly the last time in their entire existence. He knows he’s scared, rationally speaking. He knows he should be pouring over the prophecy until their last feasible moment, but somehow he can’t make himself. 

He’d rather spend his attention on Crowley.

Funny that - he had spent a rather vast  _ majority  _ of his life focusing on Crowley, and this time would be no different. 

The bus pulls up in from of Crowley’s apartment complex, and the driver is certainly confused, but nonetheless bids the duo a good night (and, perhaps, good luck - but neither completely register what he says; instead, Crowley leaves a few coins in his sock to discover when he stands up, just to be generous in his own demonic way). 

Then they are outside again, and the bus is pulling away, and they’re still holding hands. They hold hands as they walk into the building, and they hold hands as they step into the lift. Neither of them look the other in the eyes, but they don’t have to, not really; they move in tandem with each other, step by step, side by side, and it takes no effort at all for them both to stop at the same time in front of Crowley’s door. However, it takes Crowley forever to fumble with his keys in a desperate attempt to free them from his skinny jeans; they fall to the floor, he stoops to pick them up, but Aziraphale has already miracled the door unlocked and is gently leading him inside. 

His pulse is now in his  _ ears  _ and his mind isn't  _ working  _ and it’s both too dark and too bright in the front hall, and he closes his eyes behind his glasses just to make the world stop, it all needs to stop, just for a  _ moment- _

“Crowley?” whispers Aziraphale, and Crowley is pulled out of his anxiety and back into the land of the living and breathing, though his shoulders are hunched, and he is tired. Yes, he is physically exhausted, but the whirring of his mind is sapping his cogs, toying with his perceptions and memories; he is not okay, not in the least - but he supposed that was normal (it is) for just surviving an Apocalypse and being the target of a hit job from two out of three all-powerful realms. 

He hums a little response, something from deep within his throat, and Aziraphale is sliding his glasses off the bridge of his nose. He doesn’t care where they go, whether his angel places them on the hall’s convenient side table or crushes them under his loafers. He just-

He just wants to see Aziraphale.

Then warm palms are cradling cool cheeks, and  _ this  _ is Heaven, it has to be, because Heaven didn’t deserve to exist without Aziraphale’s hands, his face, his voice, his eyes, his  _ being _ . Or else it wasn’t Heaven. 

Crowley leans into them, takes in the opposing, flushed face with drooping eyes and golden irises. He could stand here forever. 

“My dear…” Even his words are soft, like down pillows freshly stuffed that Crowley could cannonball into. “I’m so very glad you’re  _ safe _ .”

_ Safe _ . He wanted to balk at that; they were nowhere  _ near  _ safe; as soon as Heaven and Hell got their affairs in order and told millions of rowdy soldiers to stand down, they would come for them, and they would be done for. 

He’d give it the night. 

And that thought was enough to wake him from his slow descent into denial, but not enough to pry him from his angel’s grasp. 

He collects himself, blinks a few times, tries to get his tongue to move in the shape of English rather than Latin or Greek or Italian or, one of Aziraphale’s favorites,  _ French _ . 

“Angel-” He has to swallow. Aziraphale gives him the precious time he needs - time that they don’t have.  ** _I love you_ ** \- “Me too.” And he feels every bit of lame that response entails. 

Somehow, Aziraphale gets the sentiment; he is used to it, after all. 

His hands drift away, and Crowley wants to beg for him to put them back, to hold him upright and let him stare all night at those beautiful blue eyes that he has no right to see - but he doesn’t. Of course he doesn’t. He only watches Aziraphale begin to shrug off his coat to reveal an inch or two more of his neck, watches the way he hooks it onto the coat rack by the door with grace and precision with perfectly manicured hands. 

Crowley stands there dumbly with a slack jaw and a furrowed brow, and he doesn’t notice the sunglasses-sized protrusion from Aziraphale’s coat pocket. 

The angel breathes in and out once in a pause, then proceeds into the rest of Crowley’s apartment like he had done this hundreds of times, like it was nothing to see how Crowley lived when he was away from him, where all his hopes and dreams coagulated into brutalist architecture and a few scared-out-of-their-stems plants. It feels more intimate than he would have liked, but he follows him in anyway.

His hand and cheeks feel cold. 

Aziraphale is quick to miracle up some hot cocoa in his typical angel wing mug (that he must have miracled up too - or found a replica in one of Crowley’s cabinets), and in a duplicate, albeit black, mug for his companion. 

Crowley doesn’t even register where they are - it could be the kitchen, or the empty living room, or his office; though, he decides it is his office, because he is suddenly sitting on that fucking throne of his, with the mug in his hand, and Aziraphale is looking up at him from across the table.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” his angel asks, but it’s not an accusation; it is born from genuine concern, and Crowley wishes it wasn’t. 

“Like what?” Again, he is too lost to answer without sounding daft. 

“Dear.” This time, his angel’s voice  _ is  _ clipped, but there isn’t a hint of any other malice other than the usual tone of annoyance he so often tried to tease out. 

Crowley breathes, his nostrils suddenly bombarded with chocolate steam, and he has to set the mug in front of him before he gags.

It’s a long reach. 

“I’m… I’m thinking of things.”   
“What things?”

Aziraphale sips his cocoa, seems calm as a cucumber, and Crowley wants to scream.

“All the things. About today- or yesterday…” It seems like it’s past midnight. Is it? (it is)

“Right.”

“And about- the prophecy.”

“Mhm.”

** _About you. Always about you_ ** .

“-I’ve got nothing.” His chest deflates and he feels like a slug about to slop onto the floor; he deserves to be called one, anyway. 

“That’s alright.” And this is possibly the first time Crowley hears Aziraphale lie without knowing it; because it’s his angel’s knee-jerk reaction to comfort him when the world isn’t going to end, and he was right - it didn’t - but  _ their  _ world was going to end. So it counts. 

_ It isn’t alright _ ! Crowley wants to rip his hair out split end by split end. 

“Is it though?”

Aziraphale sets down his mug too, and leans a bit forward in the velvet seat to rest his plush palms on the cold and unforgiving surface of Crowley’s stupid desk that he bought in a rich person’s auction simply to spite some billionaire who wanted another rock in his mansion. 

“It’s  _ going to be _ alright,” his angel amends, but it doesn’t make him feel any better. 

He doesn’t know where the light in the room is coming from.

Crowley makes a noise not unlike a scoff, but Aziraphale is used to it. He’s used to a lot of things now, and apparently their inevitable un-existence is one of them. 

_ Crowley wants to scream _ . 

So he sits there.

Aziraphale sits in front of him. 

The television stays off, and he is thankful it doesn’t contain an image of Hastur and Ligur for once. Well- it could only be one of them now. 

Oh, that’s right. Ligur un-existed right in the doorway over there. 

Crowley swallows, and has nothing to say. 

Aziraphale watches, doesn’t seem to move. 

_ Will they stay like this until bloody morning _ ?

Crowley takes it upon himself to say  _ no, we fucking will not _ , and suddenly stands, palms also flat on the table, fingers in line with his angel’s. 

And his angel startles, blinks up at him, is not at all prepared when Crowley lifts up a gold, gaudy lion paperweight and smashes it on the ground. 

“ _ -Crowley- _ ”

“Angel,” he implores, almost pleads, and hands him an obsidian stapler. “Go on.”

Aziraphale has no choice but to take what is thrust into his hand, and frowns poshly, although doesn’t set the stapler back down.

“And what do you expect me to do with this?”

“Throw it. Bash it into the desk. Smash the telly with it. Just- do it. If you want to. You don’t have-”

And it is Crowley’s turn to be surprised when he drops the tool onto the floor, watching it dent the stone tile beneath it. He feels an ember of satisfaction at the prospect of  _ damaging  _ something, and this is a whole  _ new  _ feeling of  _ naughtiness _ . 

A hint of a smile lights up his face. 

“Yeah, you’ve got it,” commends Crowley, and he breathes a light laugh, cheekbones sharp with a grin of his own. “Grab anything you want. Do anything you want.”

_ I hate this place _ , he wants to say, yell to the star-spattered sky.  ** _This _ ** _ isn’t my home _ .

“Are you quite sure?”

“Earth yeah I am.”

So Aziraphale plucks the  _ inbox  _ tray from its innocent perch and smacks the edge of the desk with it, effectively chipping off a few chunks of stone. Crowley couldn’t have been prouder.

“Fuck yeah, angel.”

He takes up his globe - the one he used when he tried to run away - and chucks it right into the television, causing the screen to shatter into a thousand little pieces and a fireworks display of sparks light up the room. Somehow, his soul feels lighter, and he wants to chase the feeling for all it’s worth.

Aziraphale shoves the remaining papers off his desk, delighting in how they flutter about, and snatches one to tear in half; _ that one was a good one _ , Crowley thinks (it was a memo from Beelzebub, telling him to seduce a nun). 

“Oh um- I quite enjoy this, dear, but I’m afraid there’s nothing else on your desk.”

“We’re just getting started.” 

It feels like Crowley is frighteningly awake, all his nerves standing on end, his pupils dilated, and what he cannot admit to Aziraphale he will translate into rage and destruction. 

But never will he lay a malicious hand on his angel. Instead, their fingers twine together again, almost as if they never left each other’s hold, and he guides Aziraphale into the living room where there is plenty of shitty, uncomfortable furniture and knick knacks to destroy. 

To demonstrate, he kicks at the glass top of his coffee table (on which he has never placed a single cup of coffee) and shatters it into virtual stardust. Aziraphale stifles a gasp but is one to quickly follow the lead (only when Crowley is leading), and tips over a cheap brass boar bookend so it clatters to the floor. 

“Everything in here too?” he asks with amazement, and his eyes are fixed not on the mess, but on their tangled hands, marveling at how tightly they were clenched together, how badly they needed to hold onto the other. (The latter hasn’t clicked yet.)

“Everything, angel. Tear it to fucking shreds.”

Because if this was their last night together forever, they were going to do  ** _whatever _ ** _ the fuck they wanted _ . 

There is rage within energy, energy within rage; it is what War is born from, and what perpetuates the _human _condition. **_Rage_**_, _**_rage _**_against the dying of the light_ \- and that is what they do. 

They are more human than they have ever been as they tear apart Crowley’s meaningless decorations. They are terrified and angry and they find expression in tearing the couch cushions into flayed shreds. They find solace in smashing windows with various ornaments Crowley doesn’t even remember where he got. Stiff blankets are swiftly torn in half, scratchy carpet is ripped up, walls are scratched either with claws or titanium fingernails. Their pants and grunts fill the rooms they destroy; their next stop is the kitchen, where glass upon glass is shattered into oblivion, where square plates are tossed out the windows and off the balcony. Then they are in Crowley’s bedroom.

Aziraphale has never been in his bedroom.

He pauses alongside Crowley, hesitates as he catches his breath and latches onto Crowley’s arm with his own as if they were sinking into the floor. 

“Here too?”

And he looks up at him with wild eyes, eyes that for the first time show more dark pupil than radiant blue iris, and Crowley thinks he’s never been more in love with him than in this moment. 

There isn’t anything other than a bed in front of them, adorned in pillows and sheets. But otherwise, there is nothing fun to smash, pillage, punch. 

So Crowley shakes his head, and he knows Aziraphale is done destroying things humans have made. 

His angel tightens his grip around his arm, buries his face against his shoulder, and lets out a blood-curdling scream. 

_ There is nothing left to do but scream _ . 

Crowley is taken aback, panics as always, but now it is his turn to comfort the other; he tries to channel the feeling of warm palms against cheeks into something tangible, focuses on wrapping his bony arms around Aziraphale’s form and hugs him tight against his chest as they both sink to the floor onto their knees. 

Aziraphale screams again, and there is defeat mingled with forgiveness. 

An angel’s scream is an eldritch horror in itself; it should never exist, never find a place in the universe. It contains all the unbelievable pain anyone could ever experience, all wrapped up into an impossible wavelength that would most likely fall on deaf ears. Except Crowley is there, and he starts to cry, because he has never heard Aziraphale scream. To him, it’s the most piercing wail, and it reaches into his chest with inviting fingers and he wants it to take his heart, take his lungs, take all he has to give, because he cannot possibly fix whatever was the cause. He wants to give himself whole, press himself into a molecule and have that be the fix, have Aziraphale consume all of him so the screaming would end. 

But his vocal cords vibrate before he can even think of compressing himself into nothingness, and soon he has his snotty and teary face buried in Aziraphale’s hair as they both sob together.  _ So very human _ . 

Aziraphale reaches and clutches at the back of Crowley’s shirt, presses his face against his chest, and he hears the frantic beating of that immortal heart and weeps some more. He can’t lose Crowley. He could never lose Crowley - it was never even an option. 

“ _ You’re an angel, I don’t think you can do the wrong thing _ .”

“ _ I’ve never eaten an oyster _ .”

_ “Lift home _ ?”

“ _ I’ll take you anywhere you want to go. _ ”

“ ** _Come with me_ ** .”

He clings to the only being he has ever loved, knows he loves more than life and the Almighty Herself. And maybe it’s sacrilege, but he doesn’t care. He doesn’t care about even himself, about facing the flames and feeling his body and essence burn in agony into nothing. 

He just wants Crowley to be okay.

But he couldn’t make that happen - and that killed him. 

His eyes are puffy and dry with tears that will no longer come, and he realizes he has never cried in all his years of existence. There’s always a first. 

Crowley sniffs, smells the hair that always gives off the best smells, notes how they both smell of sulfur and ashes, and quickly cleans up the soggy mess he made with a quiet snap.    
They’re both quiet now, and it’s a different kind of silence. It’s filled with everything they’ve said and everything they have never said, things they are scared to say and things that they have been too joyous to utter. _ It’s like mixing all the colors of the rainbow, expecting something overwhelmingly beautiful, and the only outcome is a disappointing  _ ** _mud_ ** . 

Crowley considers asking if he is okay, but tosses that thought out the window along with the plates. Of course they weren’t okay, and they wouldn’t ever be okay again. Crowley had skipped right over denial, bargaining, anger, everything - and had fallen belly-first into acceptance. 

But that never meant he would go down without a fight. 

So he squeezed his angel tighter, resisting digging his claws into the soft velvet of his waistcoat that was speckled with sparkling glass. And then he looked down, saw his hands were cut and bloody, and Aziraphale had enough of his wits about him now that he noticed Crowley’s catch in breath. 

So he does what he would do any time he knows Crowley is in distress.

“Are you hurt?” he murmurs, his voice scarily even. He pulls back, and Crowley almost sobs again at the loss of his chest against his own. 

“‘S nothing, angel…” Crowley’s throat is sore and blown ragged, and he looks away because he knows he just lied; his palms sting, but it’s nothing compared to what he’ll face soon enough. 

“Nonsense…” 

His angel pulls his hands to his chest, gasps quietly at the deep gashes, and passes them over with his own to heal them without a moment’s hesitation. Then he presses his lips to each line of his palm, over his knuckles, his fingertips, and it looks like he is praying. He is devoting himself with no qualms, no spite, no delay. He is Crowley’s, and Crowley’s is his. 

And Crowley feels his lower lip quiver, feels the tears threatening to make a reprise, but Aziraphale is quicker than he is to cover his eyes and make a small noise of disapproval. 

“No. No more crying, dear. We’ve had enough.”

Another lie - but he knew if he didn’t tell it, Crowley would sob until they faced their bitter end. 

Lies were good in times of distress. 

“ _ You go too fast for me, Crowley. _ ”

That will forever be his best. 

He didn’t draw his hands away. He would never do that again; no, he cleared the remaining wateriness away with his thumb across Crowley’s lids, felt how hot his skin flushed, how his veins pulsed under his skin. 

Crowley was so damn beautiful. 

His lips purse, and Crowley thinks he has done something horribly wrong. 

“Crowley, my dear…” Aziraphale starts, makes sure Crowley is listening. And he is, he is always listening, he’s been listening since he crawled out of the earth and slithered through Eden. 

“You’re so, so  _ beautiful _ .”

Crowley doesn’t know what to do, where to look, what to say, and his heart has skipped several beats in the span of a second. 

“-What?”

“You’re gorgeous, Crowley.”

“...Ah.”

Aziraphale smiles - because Crowley is the only thing worth smiling about now - and strokes his thumb down his jaw. 

“I wish I had told you sooner.”

Crowley bites into his lip, tastes blood, feels the world drop out from under him, and suddenly the quiet says nothing - because he is  _ saying nothing _ . Nothing is coming out of his mouth, and he doesn’t know how to fix it. 

So he nods. He keeps nodding, he keeps leaning into those hands, finds himself curled up in Aziraphale’s arms, against his chest, both propped up against the end of his bed on the cold, hard floor. He hopes this says enough. He hopes all of this is enough. 

_ How  _ ** _could _ ** _ it be enough?  _

Nothing ever would. 

Aziraphale strokes his hair, tells him quietly he needs his rest. It is best to rest, pretend their world isn’t going to end. That’s the only way they would spend their dwindling hours keeping sane. 

And soon, Crowley is nestled in Aziraphale’s lap, and his angel leans his head back against the bed. His hand doesn’t stop threading through that fiery hair until morning. 

**Author's Note:**

> Don't worry, the smut will come. It'll just be a journey to get there. Depending on how much angst vs fluff I come up with, this could branch into 3 chapters.


End file.
